Desert Southwest gardening can be sustainable, smart and spectacular.

Tag Archives: lavender

When we purchased more than a dozen lavender plants last spring, we chose one that was touted as a superb culinary lavender (Lavandula angustiolia Buena Vista) and placed it in a container, the way I usually prefer to grow herbs. The stems are not as long, but the buds are supposed to have better flavor. I love having it near the patio table, where it still looks pretty and I can walk by and rub my fingers on the leaves or buds anytime to enjoy the scent.

Culinary lavender is a perfect container plant near your kitchen.

I’ve seen plenty of recipes for lavender, usually in pastries. The only one I’ve tried so far (and loved!) is a lavender potato salad I’ve adapted from the book “Lavender: How to Grow and Use the Fragrant Herb” (Stackpole Books) by Ellen Spector Platt. By the way, this is our go-to source for growing and harvesting lavender. We combine some of the book’s information with local sources because of our differences in zone and water. Other than that, Ellen knows lavender! And the book has several recipes I plan to try.

This herb stripper makes it easier to strip fresh lavender buds from stems. If dried, you can roll the buds between your fingers.

To me, lavender is the most versatile of all herbs, right up there with its close relative, rosemary. If you don’t have one of the culinary varieties, it’s a great plant to add to your garden. But I made this recipe several times before we got this plant, and it tasted great! So try it with any lavender.

Lavender is without a doubt my favorite drought-tolerant plant. Aside from its stunning appearance in the garden, it’s a fragrant herb. We added 15 lavender plants to our garden last year, and some of them failed to make it, mostly because of unseasonably cool and moist spring weather. But most of the survivors are now thriving and we have plans to expand our lavender “operation,” because once you get it started, it’s just so darn easy to grow.

Close-up of Hidcote Superior English Lavender blooms. The stems of ours did not get very long, but I believe it will do better next year. I love the deep purple color.

If you cut off the first blooms of the season, lavender plants reward you with another late-season show. Yesterday, I decided to harvest some of the flowering buds to dry them for possible potpourris, bundles, and other gifts and to encourage the second wave of blooms. It was great fun!

To experiment with drying stems, buds and leaves, I cut some short stalks from newer plants that were not long enough to dry as bundles. They’ll make great potpourri or sachets, assuming I am smart and industrious enough to figure out how. I included a pretty established white lavender that’s been in the garden for years.

Tools for my first attempt at lavender harvesting: our notebook with records of lavender planting, rubber bands, large paper clips opened up, and tags to mark bundles.

Some of the stems are too short to hang and I don’t want to waste any buds that might fall. I’ve heard of using paper bags, and remembered I could never bring myself to throw out the bags my espresso beans come in. They were the perfect size and already have a sturdy top that’s easy to close and hook onto for hanging. I cut holes in the sides of the bags for ventilation and marked the plant and date on the bag. One concern I have is that the bags still smell (deliciously) like coffee, so I wonder if the lavender inside will blend with that aroma. Worst case? Lavender lattes! Seriously, I might try it.

But I really love the look of dried stem bundles, and six of our one-year-old plants have produced a good crop of long stems. I went ahead and harvested stems from one of them. The trick to gathering long stems is this: You want the length to maximize the look and aroma, so it helps to cut all the way down to the plant’s round shape of existing foliage. But I realized after cutting that I removed many tiny, new flower buds down the stem. That might affect the number of blooms in the second round. We’ll see how the late-summer bloom on this plant compares with the next one I harvest.

One-year-old Royal Velvet English lavender blooming away in a xeric garden. There are two more next to it. The other purple to the left is from volunteer Larkspur.

Same plant after I harvested all of the stems. In retrospect, I should have left some on the plant that hadn’t quite opened. But I guess the symmetry before and after appeals to me more. I even trimmed it to make it nice and round again.

Out of one (one-year-old) Royal Velvet English Lavender, I was able to make a respectably sized bundle and a smaller bundle to take to friends I was having a picnic with that later in the day. I also stripped some of the leaves and tiny buds from down the stem and placed them in a coffee bag for even more yield from the plant.

Here’s my yield for the day: a long and short stem from the Royal velvet plant, plus a bag of “remnants,” a bag of white lavender buds, and one bag each from the Hidcote and a young Munstead, both too short to bundle but just as aromatic.

The day before, I had hammered several nails into the beams of our old shed. It’s dry and has good ventilation. It’s not completely dark, which might be the drawback. I used rubber bands to hold the bundle together, and opened up large paper clips to secure the rubber band or the bag tops to the nail. I also slipped a small piece of cut-up old business cards into the bundle’s rubber band with the plant and date and hung it upside down. They should take about a week to dry.

I knew this shed would be good for more than storage! All it took was nails, paper clips and coffee bags.

It’s hot here. I thought I would never say that. And sure, it’s not as hot as Phoenix, but even mountain communities in the Southwest can warm up in summer months. When the temperatures hit the 90s, the humidity stays below 25 percent, and the winds never subside, vegetables and ornamental plants get stressed.

In May, this columbine was blooming and healthy! It’s a little stressed now. Columbines grow naturally under the shade of trees, and they need deep water as temperatures rise into the 70s and higher. We mulched around the plant and put it in a northeast-facing location to help it survive summer.

Often, our first reaction is to throw more water on a plant. Sometimes, that’s what they need. Wind, sun and heat dry plants more quickly. Native xeric plants are adapted to take some of the parching sun and wind, and sometimes a gardener can overwater a plant. Here are a few tips to keep xeric plants cool, healthy and happy during the heat of summer:

Start with the right plant for the right spot. That means not only a native selection, but choosing sun vs. shade or the right drainage. Most xeric plants can take plenty of sun, but some need partial shade. And most don’t take kindly to wet feet, or roots that fail to dry between watering. Wet feet can happen with overwatering or if you place lavender in poorly draining soil at the bottom of a hill, or hide it under a bush that grows quickly and shades it within a year. You also can plan ahead to take advantage of shade. It’s getting too hot for my lettuce, but we’ll plant some more north of the fence holding the pole beans as soon as they get a little taller.

The sun is so bright, it’s reflecting off the spot where we hope to get some shade for lettuce and spinach. You can see the bean seedlings on the other side of the foreground fence shadow.

Follow the sun. When you plant in spring, the sun and shade patterns are different than they will be in mid-July and August. So keep in mind the sun’s direction and any plants or structures that might help shade a plant late in the day, when the sun’s rays are their hottest. Remember that deciduous trees might be nearly bare when you plant, but loaded by mid-June.

When helping a new plant get established, the typical care instructions might not apply. The plant goes into a sort of shock, much like when you recover from illness or injury. All plants need a little more water, as well as extra sun and wind protection until established. We’ve often used portable lawn chairs to provide filtered shade over new plantings in the afternoon. Old sheets or landscape fabric also work.

Use containers. If you have a plant that’s more susceptible to heat stress, place it in a container. You can move it around throughout the summer based on the sun’s path. Of course, if you really love the plant and have lots of time on your hands (and wheels under a larger container), you can move it around during the day, giving it morning sun and afternoon shade.

The tomato seedlings I planted in containers are doing better than many in the ground. The patio and house warmed them up during cool nights, but provide shade now on hot afternoons.

Water in the morning. It’s tough to find time before work, but watering early in the day loads your plant up, preparing it for the heat. And try to keep soil evenly moist. If you have a slow drip system, the irrigation can run while you get ready for work. Cover the drip hose with a nice, thick layer of mulch and the mulch will slow the water’s evaporation and help keep the ground cool. And as I’ve said before, it’s good to keep an eye on tomatoes and other vegetables and to have someone care for them if you leave town. Once the fruit sets, you can’t drown the tomato to make up for a few days of heat and underwatering. They’ll punish you.

Finally, drink some iced tea, flavored with a small bit of fresh mint. Oh, wait, that’s for me…

Gardeners often face the choice of filling a container or a space in their xeric landscape with either an annual or perennial. And new gardeners might have a hard time knowing whether a plant they spot and love will come back in their garden next year. Let’s take a look at annuals vs. perennials, especially in xeric landscaping.

These agave are xeric, but apparently so are these cosmos, annuals that just pop up from old seeds each year, to the point we had to thin them to give the agave room.

First-time gardeners might not get the difference between the plant types. It’s easy to remember if you think about the terms attached to each plant: A perennial lasts three years or more, but an annual is there only for this year, just like the root of the word (annus, Latin for year).

So, how do you know when you want a perennial and when you want an annual? Here are a few scenarios:

For containers, it’s often best to go with annuals. Unless you have plenty of sunny indoor space and a strong back, you’re better off placing annual flowers into most of your containers, just for the season. Of course, succulents can easily live indoors in sunny locations, as can some herbs, bedding plants and houseplants. I love planting just a few containers each year in front of my house, and at our last home, we had one annual bed that we changed out each year, also adding pansies for winter color. It’s a small splurge.

But if you’ve got a huge raised bed to fill, go with bulbs and perennials, or maybe spring-blooming bulbs, overplanted with annual seeds that come up later in summer, after your bulbs are done blooming. Seeds cost less if you’re willing to wait for the plant to grow, then bloom. Having said that, one of the benefits of buying annual plants is instant gratification!

I think I just showed the combination of yarrow and gaillardia, but I can’t get over how great the perennial and annual look together.

Here are some of my favorite low-water annuals, many of which are wildflowers that will reseed:

California poppy

Cosmos

Desert marigold

Portulaca (Moss rose)

For most xeric gardens, however, you can’t beat a hardy, low-water perennial that blooms year after year. All you usually have to do is cut back dead branches or flower stems and wait. A few cautions with perennials: Some spread, even though they’re xeric plants. And sometimes, you have to cut them back drastically to keep your garden under control and prevent one perennial from competing too much with others, such as shading another plant that needs six hours of sun a day.

This gray santolina. along with a few neighboring perennials, is blocking sun to the red sage next to it. I love both plants, so we might move the sage to a sunnier location.

Here are a few of my favorite low-water perennials:

Coreopsis

Echinacea, or coneflower

Gaura

Lavender

Penstemon

Sedum

Santolina

Sage – any perennial salvia and sage

Yarrow

How do you tell an annual from a perennial when making a purchase? If your nursery doesn’t have the plants sorted by annuals vs. perennials, you can always ask. Another clue is that many annuals are sold in six-packs or similar packaging for several smaller plants. Perennials tend to come in pint size, gallon pots and up. But that’s not always the case. And a particular flower might be available as both, so check the tag or ask nursery staff. An example is the salvia, which comes as several great perennials. But there is a red salvia that only works as an annual, at least in my zone.

Pink and purple larkspur, the annual version of Delphinium. These reseed under our red bud each year with no effort on our part.

That takes me to my final point: One gardener’s perennial might be another gardener’s annual. In other words, zone and general conditions can alter a plant’s ability to endure for more than one season. Geraniums are container plants or annuals in the mountains and high desert of New Mexico, but might be perennial in southern California. And just to add to the confusion, hardy geraniums (of the genus Geranium), are different from Pelargoniums, common geraniums, such as the scented flowers. And gaillardia, or blanket flower, is one of my favorite plants that might be an annual or perennial, depending on the cultivar and conditions. Ours simply reseed throughout the garden year after year.

I added several other photos of annuals and perennials mentioned in this post to the Photos page.

Growing an edible garden makes great sense – you use water to produce food, and it’s food that can’t get any fresher or more local! Growing food in pots and other containers can be even more rewarding, especially for gardeners who have limited space, problems with critters or who want their herbs and vegetables close at hand.

Lettuce is a great container plant. The one in the foreground had tomatillos, just for fun, not so much for yield.

Rosemary, basil, lettuce and cherry or grape tomatoes are my favorite edibles to have right near my kitchen door. But I’ve been known to push the boundaries a little, once growing an okra plant in a small container (admittedly mostly for the flower) and a large pot of carrots last year. We’re upping the ante with an even bigger carrot crop, but more on that in a future post…

Here’s our dancing carrot, or rather two carrots, grown in crowded container conditions last year.

Here’s the thing – containers can take a little more water during hot summer months, but you also can confine your crop, so to speak. I believe that container-grown edibles are less susceptible to some bugs and soil-borne problems. And I love that I can move the containers to control sun exposure as the conditions change. Most of all, you just can’t beat the convenience of herbs and vegetables just outside your kitchen door at meal times.

Here are a few tips for making your container edibles fun and productive:

First, it can be tempting to fill your containers with soil from your garden. Resist the temptation and spend the money on some good commercial potting mix. I use organic composts and potting mixes. The reason? Ground soil compacts when confined to a pot. This makes it harder for water to drain and for roots to grow.

Choose your container to fit the plant’s mature size. It might look less attractive at first, but the reward of juicy tomatoes is worth your patience!

This yellow grape tomato was great for snacking right on the patio all summer.

If the container is particularly large, you can line the bottom with pebbles or plastic bottles to encourage drainage and use some yard or garden soil for fill. But keep it to a minimum, and make sure the soil that the plant’s roots touch is the best possible mix.

A few herbs are grown better in containers for their own special reasons. I like to have a small basil or rosemary on my patio table throughout the summer for the appearance, scent and convenience. And then there is mint – which should only grow in containers unless you really love it and want to replace everything else in your lawn, your neighbor’s lawn, your town… with mint. And it comes in lemon, orange or chocolate varieties to enjoy on the patio or balcony.

Many container-grown plants require fertilizer because the soil doesn’t have the same natural nutrients as garden soil. But use it judiciously and according to the individual plant. For example, chile peppers typically need no fertilizer. If you start with healthy soil, you need less, and if you use it too often or at the wrong time, you’ll force more growth into the foliage and get a plant that outgrows your container and gets too lanky to support its fruit.

Usually, you have to water container-grown plants more often, but not always. Don’t assume that when a plant wilts, lack of water is the cause. And that’s the beauty of containers – try moving the plant to the shade on hot days, or move all of them there if you have to be away for the weekend. They’ll survive better on your pre-departure watering until you return.

Remember that you can add mulch to containers, just as you do in flower beds. Decorative mulch can offset the look of an edible in a container, such as crushed seashells under chard. Mulch also serves a practical purpose. Those white seashells or pebbles can reflect sun back up to your potted lavender or bark chips can hold moisture in to conserve water and keep plants cool.

And if you love being creative and repurposing, go ahead and push the limits. You might end up with lower productivity from your edible, or need more total containers, but it’s fun to place edibles in a few fun or funky containers. If I want more yield, I duplicate the seeds or transplant in the ground or a larger container. That way, I get the aesthetic pleasure and practical returns.

We found this old metal bucket at my in-laws’ ranch and planted some spinach in it.

Planning your spring garden or patio plants? You might have limited space, and certainly should consider limiting water use, so I’ve got a few tips for choosing low-water herbs for your garden, kitchen window or patio.

The good news is that like many xeric plants we grow in New Mexico gardens, many herbs have their roots in the Mediterranean. They prefer well-draining soil and low water.

Rosemary (Rosemarinus officinalis) is the first herb that comes to mind, and is one of my favorites, both as an herb and as an ornamental. You can grow a small rosemary in a pot, keeping it trimmed (by cutting the tips and using the herb in recipes, of course) or grow a mounding or spreading form of the plant in your low-water garden. As an ornamental, rosemary has attractive foliage and blooms with light blue or pink flowers. It’s a tough herb that survives cold to about 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Just watch for overwatering and snow damage. If you get a heavy snow, try to knock the powder off your rosemary plant. Here’s a link to the Herb Society of America’s fact sheet on rosemary.

Established rosemary in pot that wintered over. I took a few cuttings all winter.

Thyme (Thymus) is another low-water favorite. Thymus vulgaris is the common shrubby herb, but several ornamental forms provide interest in the garden, and other flavors provide culinary variety. For example, lemon thyme is a favorite for marinades or sauces. I love to walk around our rock garden and rub my fingers on the leaves of our thyme shrub just to get a whiff of the scent, which is sort of a combination of earthy and salty. We use the dried leaves in several recipes and also enjoy the tiny, delicate lilac-colored flowers in summer. Thyme only needs water in the hottest zones and times of year.

Thyme is evergreen even in Zone 6. Some of it dies back, and new growth appears on new stems. This is new growth in early March.

Lavender (Lavendula) is a favorite Mediterranean herb, and we are experimenting now with several varieties. Our biggest mistake was to place the mail-ordered plants in the ground a bit early. The soil was not warm enough for the sun lovers. Lavender must have well-drained soil to prevent the roots from sitting in water. In New Mexico, French of Spanish lavender works much better than English lavender varieties. Be careful not to cut into the woody stems when trimming. Check with nurseries or catalogs for the best variety in your area and zone and for the purpose you want. I’ve used lavender in recipes, and have dried stalks of it in vases throughout my home just for scent and attractiveness. We’ll keep trying to improve our lavender-growing skills, and studying ideas for uses. Check out our Pinterest board for more on lavender.

A new lavender plant in a container.

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) needs full sun and most varieties require no watering. Although not as attractive as the other plants I’ve mentioned, fennel is a versatile herb and easy to grow. We haven’t planted any, but it’s popped up around our garden, presumably from seeds of past plants. The fern-like leaves do have some appeal, and birds love the seeds once they turn brown. With a flavor similar to anise, fennel is a stock herb for many breads and pickling mixes. Learn more from the Herb Society of America.